Mom sentenced in horrific San Antonio child abuse case

Cheryl Reed is the mother of the two young children found chained and leashed outside a San Antonio home. She was charged with two counts of injury to a child. Reed enters a hearing on Wednesday, May 11, 2016, where a jduge ruled the Department of Family and Protective Services will keep temporary custody of eight children rescued from a house April 29, where authorities found two of them tied up in a back yard and six others living squalor. less

Cheryl Reed is the mother of the two young children found chained and leashed outside a San Antonio home. She was charged with two counts of injury to a child. Reed enters a hearing on Wednesday, May 11, 2016, ... more

Photo: Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News, Staff Photographer

Photo: Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News, Staff Photographer

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Cheryl Reed is the mother of the two young children found chained and leashed outside a San Antonio home. She was charged with two counts of injury to a child. Reed enters a hearing on Wednesday, May 11, 2016, where a jduge ruled the Department of Family and Protective Services will keep temporary custody of eight children rescued from a house April 29, where authorities found two of them tied up in a back yard and six others living squalor. less

Cheryl Reed is the mother of the two young children found chained and leashed outside a San Antonio home. She was charged with two counts of injury to a child. Reed enters a hearing on Wednesday, May 11, 2016, ... more

Photo: Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News, Staff Photographer

Mom sentenced in horrific San Antonio child abuse case

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The mother of two children who were found tied up and chained in a backyard in a horrific child abuse case in 2016 was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.

Cheryl Reed, 32, was arrested days after Bexar County sheriff's deputies found the children — a boy, 4, and a girl, 3 — bound with chains and dog leashes and left outside a home in the 8100 block of Chipping in the Camelot II subdivision in far Northeast Bexar County. She is the last of three defendants sentenced in the case.

Shortly after state District Judge Laura Parker handed down the sentence at a hearing Friday, Reed heard from the adoptive mother of the two tied up in the yard and a third child that Reed had while in Bexar County Jail.

“You have beautiful children,” LaKenya Shaw told Reed in an emotional victim impact statement that brought tears to most people in the gallery in Felony Impact Court. “My husband and I love them to bits and pieces, and they have a great family environment.”

At the time of her arrest, Reed told authorities she left her children in the care of Porucha Phillips and Deandre Dorch, who lived at the home in Camelot II.

Deputies found the children when they answered a call from a neighbor who reported hearing a child cry for several hours on April 28, 2016. Tied by the ankles and wrists, the children had numerous injuries in several stages of healing, had been left outside in the rain, possibly for several days, and were surrounded by their own feces, officials said.

Six other children between the ages of 10 months to 11 years old also were found by deputies. They were alone inside the house. Authorities determined at least three of them belonged to Phillips and Dorch. Reed told authorities she knew the couple from California, where all had lived before coming to San Antonio.

While authorities were tending to the children, Phillips and Dorch showed up. Phillips was arrested, and Dorch surrendered to face charges days later. Reed was arrested in early May 2016.

Prosecutors Karl Alexander and Emily Argulo did not present witnesses during the hearing. Neither did Reed’s attorney, Bob Featherston.

Reed “was upset and outraged about what happened to her children,” Featherston told Parker.

“She doesn’t call, she inquires a couple of times,” Alexander told the court. “It wasn’t until what happened to them made national news that she came back. She simply did not care. She completely ignored her kids.”

As part of a plea agreement, Reed was sentenced to 10 years on two counts of abandonment of a child without the intent to return, a third-degree felony. She was given credit for time served.

In May, a Bexar County jury convicted Dorch, 38, of two counts of injury to a child by omission and two counts of child abandonment. Parker sentenced him to four 65-year prison terms, which will be served at the same time. He will have to serve at least 30 years before he is eligible for parole.

As part of a plea agreement in October, Phillips, 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of injury to a child/severe bodily injury, according to Bexar County court records. Phillips was sentenced to 50 years in prison on each charge, and the sentences will be served at the same time. She will have to serve at least 25 years before she is eligible for parole.

Reed has no legal right to the three children Shaw adopted, but Shaw told her it would be up to them if they want to have a relationship with her.

“I can’t imagine how it felt to lose your children,” Shaw told Reed, who put her hands to her face and cried. “They are full of love, full of life, full of faith. Ten years isn’t that long. You won’t be completely forgotten.”